Ezekiel - Lesson 18

Lesson 18a, Rewriting the History of Israel, Part 1. The theme of this entire chapter is, Trampling Underfoot the Grace of God, Jerusalem the Adulterous Wife, Ezekiel 16, 1 to 63. I will be dealing with this chapter in two parts. It's a long chapter, 63 verses, and we don't have time to do it all, but I need to introduce the chapter as a whole, and then we'll come back and look more closely in part 2 of 18, that is 18b. That will be about the first 14 verses, the gospel according to Ezekiel. But this is an introduction to a long text, Ezekiel 16, and a very problematic text for interpreters these days. Consisting of approximately 850 words, Ezekiel 16, 1 to 63, is by far the longest single literary unit in the book. This chapter is longer than half the minor prophets, Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, and only slightly shorter than Malachi. Within the constraints that govern most pastoral preaching, it is impossible to treat the entire chapter in one lesson. I will deal with it here in two parts, and then even that will only be partial. I will spend this session on introducing us to this chapter, and then the next part will be on the first 15 verses, the gospel according to Ezekiel. This first presentation will involve explaining, talking about, offering guidance for interpreting this long and complex text to prepare us for what lies ahead. Ideally, in this context, we would begin by reading aloud the entire text. The scriptures are written to be heard, not physically touched. People in the ancient world didn't have Bibles. You couldn't afford them, but they were heard in community. So in this case, as in all others, we should read the text aloud so that we not only hear the words, but we feel the passion and try to read expositorily so that the passion and the tone of the prophet come through. But our text divides into three main parts. It begins with 16.1 to 14, the passion of God's love. Second section, verses 15 to 43, the toughness of God's love. And then third, verses 44 to 63, the triumph of God's love. Well, we need to talk about this text before we wrestle with the nature of grace and the innate human condition. This text deals with all sorts of themes that are so important to all of us because it paints a picture, a word picture of every one of us. So there are many questions that this text raises, and it poses unique problems hermeneutically, sociologically, and ethically. What are the boundaries of appropriate rhetoric? What does this text say about gender relations? What are we to make of its portrayal of God? These questions are not easily answered, but texts like this demonstrate that spiritual and theological realities cannot be reduced to simple formulas, and God himself will not be domesticated. So our goal is not to justify God here, but to try to understand God and his response to his chosen people. To prepare us for hearing the prophecy as recorded in Scripture, it may be helpful to plot out this drama in a more detailed outline. This chapter exhibits a strong legal flavor as the following broad outline demonstrates. The theme of this chapter, as I see it, is trampling underfoot the grace of God. It begins in verses 1 to 3a with a call for Jerusalem's arraignment. We'll talk about the form of this in a moment. Secondly, in verses 3b to 34, we have the indictment of Jerusalem. It begins with Jerusalem's lowly origins, 3b to 5, Jerusalem's exaltation, the Lord made her his queen, verses 6 to 14, and then Jerusalem's shamelessness, her response to grace in verses 15 to 34. And under that, we will see two shameful responses, her religious promiscuity, 15 to 22, and her political promiscuity, 23 to 34. Then, in 35 to 43, we have the sentencing of Jerusalem, beginning with a summary of the charges, 35 to 36, Yahweh's response, 37 to 42, and a concluding summary, verse 43. Fourth, the analysis of Jerusalem's problem, verses 44 to 52. You have an indicting proverb, like mother, like daughter, verse 44. Then you have, secondly, Jerusalem's family portrait, a picture of Jerusalem here with Samaria as her younger sister and Sodom as her older sister. And then Jerusalem's shameful personality, 47 to 52. But the text ends with a double ray of hope for Jerusalem, 53 to 63. It begins with the bad good news, the qualification for grace, 53 to 58, and then the good, good news, the triumph of grace in the end. A friend of mine has a book out on the triumph of grace, and that is really what we witness here. How shall we interpret Ezekiel 16, this complex and immensely problematic text? I will answer this question by posing the problems serially and then offering some guidance for answering those questions. Ezekiel 16 is obviously a very sophisticated and artfully composed text, but what is it that we are reading? This is the problem of the genre of the text. The answer to this question is critical if we want to interpret it validly and with integrity and get the point that the author is trying to make. This is obviously not a love song or a law text or a plain narrative of historical events, but it is a legal text. Here Yahweh has taken his people to court, and he presents the evidence that demanded the nation represented by Jerusalem to be punished. However, this is not a Western style of lawsuit, which typically involves four primary parties. There's the judge, a defendant, a plaintiff, plus attorneys for both, and then we have a jury. In these cases, the judge is called upon either to adjudicate a dispute between two contending parties or to supervise the proceedings and then guide the jury in their deliberations. That's how it works in our culture. We want the proceedings to actually expose guilt or expose innocence. Based on the prophetic formulas that punctuate this chapter, this is obviously a prophetic oracle, a record of a message that Yahweh revealed to Ezekiel that he was to pass on to his audience, the exiles of Judah in Babylon, in the early decades of the 6th century BC. The Hebrew word for prophetic oracles like this is ariv, R-I-V in English pronunciation, which means a lawsuit, a legal case. The word derives from a verb meaning to contend. It often involves Yahweh contending on behalf of his people or against the nations or against his own people, but it's a legal case. The prophetic pictures of Yahweh's ariv do not involve a judicial process before the courts, but in these cases, we have two contending parties arguing their cases between themselves. The disputes that Yahweh raised with Israel were conducted at a personal bilateral level in keeping with the nature of covenant relationship. This was particularly appropriate where the marriage metaphor is employed as it is in our text. Hosea 2, 4 to 15 provides a classic illustration which may have inspired Ezekiel's prophecy. In Hosea, the prophet appealed on Israel's behalf to Israel's children to reave with your mother, for she is not my wife and I am not her husband. Contend with your mother. Nevertheless, even if the genre didn't find its specific origin in the court, it borrowed much of the court's legal vocabulary. This vocabulary was also part of international diplomacy, treaty documents, and cultic processes, but it's a formal style. The common style comes from a common denominator, disagreement, contention. We've got a dispute on our hands. How are we going to talk about it? But each form adapted the language of everyday controversy to suit its own purposes. Typically, a judgment speech, including this form, the reave, consisted of the following parts. The introduction. The opening usually included some form of commissioning formula, changing the prophet to serve as a spokesman for Yahweh in the presentation of the case. That's the introduction. The summons. The prophet is called to call the defendant to attention, to hear the case about to be presented against him or her. You have this in Ezekiel 13.2, 21.3, 25.3. This element is not unique in this form. You have it elsewhere as well, and it may occur in the middle of a text as well, simply a call for attention. Third, there is the accusation. The prophet announces the charges against the defendant. They are presented as evidence in support of the charge. Since the prophet functioned as the appointed spokesman for Yahweh, the indictment frequently begins with a citation formula. Thus has the Lord Yahweh declared. Prophets may announce the charges in the form of questions. Sometimes that's what they do. They ask rhetorical questions or they do in the form of declarations. And then, fourthly, we have the sentence. Still speaking on Yahweh's behalf, the prophet announces the punishment, which could involve a declaration of Yahweh's personal intervention in the first person or a description of the results of that intervention in the third person. The latter may highlight the activity of the divine agents in executing the sentence. And five, the conclusion. The prophet stamps the oracle with some prophetic formula, usually stressing the divine origin or authority of the oracle at the end, particularly the signatory formula, the declaration of the Lord Yahweh, as we have it in verse 63. In Yahweh's Reve with his people, the prophet's role was often reflected in the introductory comments to this type of judgment speech. The book of Ezekiel contains three formal Reve prophecies, whose structures vary somewhat, but they were introduced by variations of a common divine charge to the prophet. We have it in a chart form here. In chapters 16, 1 to 2, it opens with, now the word of Yahweh came to me saying. You have it again in 22, 4. Now the word of Yahweh came to me saying. 22, 1 to 2. Now the word of Yahweh came to me saying. And 23, 1. And again in 36, now the word of Yahweh came to me saying. Son of man, in Ezekiel, they always have son of man. And then you have either a question, an appeal to the prophet in the form of a question, rhetorical of course, or a simple announcement. In Ezekiel 16, it is simply an announcement. Make known to Jerusalem her abominations. He goes very quickly to that. But in the other three, he says, Ezekiel, will you arraign them? Will you arraign them? We have it in the last one, chapter 23. Will you arraign Oholah and Oholibah? And then you have the announcement. Make known to Jerusalem her abominations. The second one, the abominations of their fathers, make known to them. The third one, then make known to her all her abominations. Then declare to them all their abominations. This is a call to declare the evidence against the person accused. The prophet's function is summarized with two verbs, shafat and higid or hodiyah. The former, shafat, means to judge. Though in this case, Ezekiel was hardly in a position to sit in judgment. He is not the judge. It's a legal term, and here we should call it arraign. God is the judge. God examines the evidence. God announces the sentence. Ezekiel doesn't. Since what follows as a bill of indictment, we represent this verb better when we translate it something like arraign the city, something like that. Sometimes this begins with a rhetorical question, will you arraign, which is really an indirect charge to the prophet. Yes, you will. I'm asking you to do it. The form of the arraignment is reflected in the charge to make known, declare the abominations of the nation. What follows in each instance is a recitation of evils for which the accused parties are indicted, and notice the general category of God's beef with his people. It's that word abominations, abhorrent actions. That is the strongest word in the Hebrew Bible for that which is utterly disgusting and repulsive to God. This is not just an ordinary, everyday-ish kind of a dispute. This is a dispute about issues that are as fundamental and low as they can be. So, that's the problem of genre. Now, let's look at the problem of style. As a social critic, Ezekiel adopted the stance of an outsider to Israel's issues and then distanced himself from the people. And of course, when I say Ezekiel, God is the one talking here. But with devastating and ironic inversion, he argued that Israel's present sins were simply continuations of the sins of Israel's past. Indeed, in spite of repeated outpourings of divine grace from Israel's earliest beginnings in Egypt, this nation had been characterized by uninterrupted immorality and faithlessness. For this reason, you've been like this all along. They deserved, Israel deserved, the full force of Yahweh's fury. In these chapters, the prophet derived his sermon material from Israel's history. But in each case, it turned out to be a story unlike anything found in the historiographic writings in the first testament. At times, in his description of Israel's past, Ezekiel sounds like Hosea, sometimes like Jeremiah. But he forces his audience to wrestle with the reality of their past by driving their images to the extreme and intentionally skewing and distorting their sacred traditions. His attribution of his reconstruction of Israel's history to Yahweh himself renders this presentation all the more shocking. This is not Ezekiel's history of Israel. These were not merely the interpretations of a dispassionate university lecturer or traveling minstrel. They represented the divine patron's own evaluation of the nation's past. When the prophet's audience will finally get that picture, then they would see Yahweh's justice vindicated, and all the props on which their smug sense of security were based, they would all be smashed. A significant element in this picture was also the shockingly revisionist picture of Israel's history that he painted, especially in chapters 16, 20, and 23. We have three texts like this that are legal, like this one is, but they all retell Israel's history. You know, when we commission somebody to write the history of a school, or of a church, or of a denomination, or of a country, when they're commissioned, we generally ask somebody who we know has a favorable understanding of that history, and so the history turns out telling a story of the most wonderful nation on earth, or the most wonderful city on earth, or the most wonderful church on earth. Never has been anything wrong with it. Well, in this case, it is entirely the opposite. As it is in chapter 20 and 23, Ezekiel painted pictures of Israel's history that were shockingly revisionistic. According to common consensus, Israel's security was firmly rooted in God's irrevocable covenant promises. After all, they were his special treasure, his kingdom of priests, his holy nation. In the people's minds, if the progress of chayetz k'shichdi, the history of salvation, appeared jeopardized by the present national crisis, to the people, that's God's problem. He has gone back on his covenantal promises. However, adopting the stance of an outsider, a social critic, Ezekiel distances himself from his own people. With a devastating, ironic inversion, he argues that the sins of Israel's present are simply a continuation of the past. In fact, in spite of divine grace, from their earliest beginnings in Egypt, she has been characterized by uninterrupted immorality and faithlessness. She therefore deserves the fury of wrath in full. In these chapters, the prophet derives his sermon materials from history, but it's something we've never heard before. He forces his audience to wrestle with the reality of their past, driving images to the extreme, and distorting and skewing them. With reference to style, in these chapters, Ezekiel's language is often colorful, bordering on the obscene and even pornographic. Distinctive forms of expression include shocking imagery, flailing about in blood, engaging in harlotry with male images, slaughtering children as food, bloody victims of wrath and jealousy, hacking in pieces with sword, paying clients to receive her sexual favors, not to mention other kinds of rare vocabulary and anomalous grammatical forms. Ezekiel casts his portrait of Israel's covenant relationship with Yahweh in crassly sexual terms. This begins with his use of the root zanah, to commit harlotry, to practice illicit sex, which functions as a key word in this chapter and again in chapter 23, which echoes this one in many respects. The verb zanah and other derivatives occurs 21 times in this description of Jerusalem's unrestrained, nymphomaniacal adventures with her lovers. The foundation for the metaphor was laid in Yahweh's covenant with Israel and his characterization in the Decalogue and elsewhere as Elkanah, the impassioned God, who will brook no rivals. He will not tolerate any other gods to be worshipped by his people. Given the covenantal basis for the marriage metaphor, one might have expected him to use the verb na'af, to commit adultery, which is slightly different to describe Israel's infidelity to Yahweh. But elsewhere, the participle zanah refers to a professional whore, a harlot, whose habitual and iterative activity is implied in the verb itself. In 1633-34, the motive of personal gain placed Israel's offenses in the realm of prostitution rather than adultery, as did the involvement of multiple partners. But Ezekiel was not the first to describe Israelite apostasy in terms of whoring after other gods. Exodus 34, 15, as early as that, or Leviticus 17, 7, Deuteronomy 31, 16, and Judges 2, 70. Ezekiel's treatment of the metaphor may have been inspired by Hosea, whom Yahweh commanded to imitate his own troubled marriage with Israel in his own experience, Hosea 2-25. In the vividness of Ezekiel 16, also recalls Jeremiah's comparison of Israel to a lustful female camel restlessly running about at an uncontrollable wild ass at the time of her heat. She needs a sexual partner. But the echoes of Jeremiah 3, 1-13 are even stronger. Indeed, Ezekiel's presentation sounds like an intentional exposition of the oracle proclaimed by his elder contemporary back home in Jerusalem. But no prophet presses the margins of literary propriety as severely as Ezekiel. If we are translating this text, we are embarrassed by what we have to translate. Earlier, Ezekiel had softened potentially offensive ideas with euphemism. However, in chapter 16, Yahweh and his priestly prophet threw caution to the wind, speaking of a woman opening her legs wide to every passerby, and of the Egyptians with their enlarged organ, and of the female genital fluid produced at sexual arousal and bearing of the pudenda. Such expressions are obviously of a piece with references to lewdness, zima, over and over, 27, 43, 58, whoredom, and nudity. However, they present, as I already intimated, serious problems for translators and commentators who attempt to clarify the author's intention and evoke equivalent effect in modern readers, but who must respect the sensitivities of their target readership. While this semi-pornographic style was a deliberate rhetorical device designed to produce a strong emotional response for a hardened audience, then, for interpreters whose aim is equivalent, the boundary between appropriate shock and offensive lack of taste is extremely fine. We noticed already with Ezekiel's favorite word for idols, gilluleme, dung pellets, goat droppings, or in English, we would say, use a four-letter word that starts with S and ends with T. That's what it is. That's a problem in this text, and what are we going to do with it? Then there is the problem of substance. While translators struggle with the details of chapter 16, modern interpreters are offended by the general picture of deity presented in this oracle. How can the Bible talk about God this way? Two features of this text are particularly troublesome. First, how can we justify this image of Yahweh who, in fulfillment of this oracle, will use Nebuchadnezzar's treatment of a recalcitrant vassal to punish the people for their sin? Yahweh's answer to Habakkuk that the wicked agent of destruction will himself be punished for his excess doesn't satisfy here. Second, how can we justify Ezekiel's rhetorical portrayal of Yahweh as an abusive husband who humiliates his wife by stripping her naked and encourages others to gang-rape her? Chapter 16 is particularly objectionable on this count, for several reasons. First, some see striking contrasts between the irreproachably positive light in which the male is cast in this story—no criticism of Yahweh—but the obscenely negative light of a female. This is the consequence of a male monopoly of symbol-making. Really, that's what some people say. Second, the prophet depicts female sexuality as the object of male possession and control and then suggests that violence can be a means toward healing a broken relationship. You can read that in the literature. Third, to involve God in an image of sexual violence somehow justifies and sanctions abuse by human males who are angry with women. God is determined—this is how some interpret this—God is determined to prove his masculinity and superiority through violent retaliation. It's a shocking text. But how do we who treasure this book as our scriptures respond to such troublesome interpretations of God at the beginning of the 21st century, and in light of the horrors of the Jewish Holocaust and the current epidemic of violence against women all around us? We're faced with several alternatives. First, we may dismiss such texts as reflecting the dark side of the human author. This is Ezekiel's problem. David Halperin finds in chapters 16 and 23 evidence of a pathological loathing of female sexuality. Second, we may reject them on historical grounds, saying they derive from a more primitive past when people lacking the modern, advanced ethical consciousness could accept this view of God. Now that we have progressed morally and spiritually, we need not take these texts seriously, and so we just treat them like cartoons. Third, one may reject these texts theologically as unrepresentative of the actions of the true God. They are not scripture because they do not portray the kind of deity we prefer. They are somebody's ideas about God, but not normative or normal. Fourth, we may take this portrayal of God literally and add abusiveness to the generally accepted list of divine attributes. And some authors are saying, yes, one of the attributes of God is that he is abusive. The good news is he isn't always that way. Most who hear our lessons on the book of Ezekiel will not find these explanations satisfying or inevitable for several reasons. There are lots of things wrong here. First, while it is tempting to compare the 6th century B.C. destruction of Jerusalem with the 20th century A.D. Jewish Holocaust, the parallels may be more apparent than real. Not only were the perpetrators of the destruction driven by different motives, there is no evidence of similar, let alone identical, divine involvement in what we witnessed in our own previous century 60, 70 years ago, let alone identical divine involvement. We don't have a word from God that Hitler was supposed to act this way. The prophets are clear on Yahweh's involvement in 586 B.C., but in the absence of similarly unequivocal word from God on the modern events, caution is advised in attributing actions or motives to God like that. Second, although none would doubt that Ezekiel was a man, the fact that Yahweh is portrayed here and consistently elsewhere in scripture in the first testament as male while Jerusalem is always presented as female, that does not necessarily reflect a fundamental pro-male, anti-female bias. According to the rule of Hebrew language, we've said this before, which generally perceives geographic entities as female, that is, the form of the word in terms of gender is female. Having chosen to describe Yahweh's broken relationship with Jerusalem in marital terms, it would have been ludicrous for Ezekiel to have God married to a male Jerusalem. It doesn't make sense. And a homosexual relationship is not an option for the same reason. Third, these conclusions arise from the selective use of texts and a disregard for the literary context in which we find the troublesome statements. And so, the role of Yahweh is exaggerated or twisted and Jerusalem's own sexual activity is misconstrued. She's a poor, innocent woman. According to Ezekiel, though, she was not innocent. She's not an innocent maiden whom Yahweh forcefully violated or capriciously humiliated and delivered to gang rapists. She had already defiled herself with her prostitution, selling her services to her allies and trading her partners. Yahweh's response was patently ironical. If the city, the nation, was so intent on bearing herself to all the passers-by, he says, let me help you. Though, of course, now with a totally different meaning. Modern interpreters increasingly find God to be the principal problem in many biblical texts. Preferring to focus on his masculinity and the city's violated femininity, they disregard the reasons for God's response. Far from acting as an oppressive and powerful male who took advantage of a weak and vulnerable female, Ezekiel 16 presents him as a gracious savior—we'll come back to this in the second part of this—who lavishes his favors on this helpless infant young woman. But she who trampled underfoot his grace would experience the other side of his passion for having done so. Fourth, texts like this do not assume and thereby support a priori a double standard of sexual conduct whereby female violation of the marital bond is treated more seriously than male infidelity. According to Israelite law, adultery was a capital crime regardless of the gender of the offender. Indeed, the Decalogue, the Ten Commands, cites only males in its prohibition of adultery, Exodus 20, 15, and Deuteronomy 5, 18. Furthermore, Ezekiel did not portray women to be promiscuous by nature. Not only was the prophet deeply devoted to his own wife, she was also the desire of his eyes, a most tender expression he has for her. There is no warrant for generalizing his issue with this figurative person to his view of women as a whole. Modern readers must guard against overwhelming the central message of the author for the primary audience, Judah, with anachronistic agendas that arise out of alien and modern cultural contexts. Fifth, rhetorical considerations determine the genre of prophetic preaching. Prophets resorted to hyperbole and graphic image for effect. In fact, the effectiveness of this figure depended precisely upon the dissonance between the image and the reality. If Yahweh's supposedly abusive behavior did indeed reflect and thereby reinforce prevailing male conduct, a problem that is probably more serious in our enlightened culture than it was then, this would diminish the rhetorical value of this prophecy. For all his aloofness, the book of Ezekiel portrays a prophet with a keen understanding of and in vital contact with his audience. Driven by a passion for the glory of God, he challenges his contemporaries with symbols designed to shock their stony hearts. That's the problem. A desperate situation calls for a desperate rhetoric. Sixth, whether or not we accept Ezekiel's perspectives that the destruction of Jerusalem was indeed the punitive act of Yahweh, it is imperative that we understand the prophet's reason for composing stories such as this, apart from the divine inspiration. Katharine Pfisterer-Darr lists four theological convictions behind Ezekiel's troublesome texts. One, far from ending in 597 BC, Jerusalem's tragedies had only begun. This wasn't a one-time thing. Two, the coming judgment was the doing of God in fulfillment of his own covenant curses long ago given graciously. They're not a sign of his surrender to Marduk and the ethic of the pagans. Third, unlike the gods of the surrounding nations, Yahweh is not a capricious deity. He acted according to principle. The person who sins dies. And fourth, Yahweh is a just God. The radical evil required a radical response. To these convictions, I would add a fifth. The same concern for the sanctification of Yahweh's name that called for the judgment of his people also demanded their ultimate restoration so that the judgment is never presented as the last word. However, the persistent and pervasive nature of Israel's apostasy required that before Yahweh could reconstitute the new community of faith, the evils of the past must be purged. The intensity of the divine passion determined the unique and often shocking style of the prophet. Seventh, to stumble over Ezekiel's figurative portrayal of Yahweh and to reject his perspective on the role of Yahweh in human affairs smacks of the very hubris for which the king of Tyre will be condemned in chapter 28. We think we are more noble than God, but like that king, instead of letting God be God on his terms and accepting his authority over us as his subject, we cast him, we force him into our own image, and if he doesn't fit our image, we reject him. Worse still, by determining what he may or may not do, we in fact sit in judgment over God, and that's a very dangerous inversion. Finally, we should not forget the special mission to which Yahweh had called Jerusalem. In spite of her ignominious origins, Ezekiel 16, 3 to 5, we'll see in the next lesson, Yahweh had set the city high above the nations of the world for praise, fame, and glory before a watching world. You see this as a fulfillment of Deuteronomy 26, 19. In 1 Kings 8, when Solomon's dedication of the temple, when the queen of Sheba comes and wow, the Lord has blessed you so richly. Well, for a short time this was the case, 1 Kings 10, 9, but already within the reign of Solomon, the worship of Yahweh and his temple were corrupted by evils borrowed from the nations. Yahweh did indeed express his disposition toward his people's rejection of his grace in graphic terms, but his response reflected his moral perfections, his hatred of sin, not only in Israel, but all over the world. If we read Ezekiel 16 as a united whole, we see God's incredible grace and love on full display in verses 1 to 14. And then when those graces are rejected, he had to express the other side of his passion, but his grace will win in the end, verses 60 to 63. This is the gospel of Ezekiel with 600 years of additional hindsight. In the crucifixion of Jesus, Yahweh incarnate, God demonstrates his love for the cosmos, and his holiness was more graphic even than that portrayed in this account. All of this prepares us then for the second half of this lesson to talk about God's amazing grace. Israel's story always starts with grace, and the question then becomes, what will they do with that grace? And that's the question for us as well.